'Sit down, shut up and listen!” It was firm but friendly advice to 86-year-old Athol Teal. And he did as he was told.

'I have something that'll interest you,” Rachel Copestake told him. It was the story in The Weekend Sun a couple of weeks back – ‘Old tattered but very special' read the headline.

Tauranga's Michael Wood hands over Paeroa man Athol Teal's long-lost family photo.

The Zoe Hunter story was about a battered family portrait from about 100 years ago – a man, dashing and dignified, suited and moustachioed and a child, five-ish and all prissy with frills and waves and a puckered bib.

Both are absolutely deadpan, not a flicker of emotion. 'Bloody amazing,” says Athol because every photo has a story. And Athol knows the story because he is part of it.

But back to the beginning and Zoe's story.

Local maintenance gardener Michael Wood found the framed photograph while cleaning a garden shed in Taupo Avenue. And he set about tracking the descendants – if there were any.

'They'd appreciate it, wouldn't they?” he told Zoe. 'If they were my relatives, I would want to know.” Michael is a man with a social responsibility.

There is some tell-tale scrawling on the back of the photograph. It seems the man in the study is John Wheeler and the girl, his daughter Amy.

Amy would one day marry John Maxwell Teal – there goes that Teal name again – and they would have sons Gordon, Keith and Athol.

Zoe's story is published and immediately the jungle drums start beating – from Brisbane to Papamoa.

In the seaside suburb, Rachel Copestake read's Zoe's story and recognises the name Teal. She knows an Athol Teal. 'Too much of a coincidence,” thinks Rachel. It is.

Now it gets complicated because Zoe's story develops international intrigue. About 2500km away in Brisbane, Lyn Brown, an amateur genealogist, reads Zoe's story online – out of interest, not through any personal connection.

Lyn does her own research and The Weekend Sun story leads her to another amateur sleuth, Irene Maisy of Taradale in Napier.

Irene's daughter Karen is engaged to a Kevin Dempster in Hikurangi, north of Whangarei. Irene has traced Kevin's family tree online and after reading it, Lyn finds all the names like Dempster, Teal and Maisey coming together.

The crucial connection to the photograph is Irene's future son-in-law Kevin Dempster is descended from Margaret Dempster – mother of Amy's husband John Maxwell Teal. Amy, of course, being the little girl in the photo.

The mystery of heritage and history unravelling?

Lyn from Brisbane alerts Irene of Napier who in turn alerts photograph finder Michael Wood of Tauranga.

And all this time Rachel of Papamoa has been on the blower to her friend, Athol Teal of Paeroa. Could that be the Athol mentioned on the back of the photograph? Could that be Athol's mother as a girl in the photo and could that be his stern faced grandfather?

No could be? It is!

'Blood amazing,” says Athol again. This is one grateful 86-year-old. 'We only had pictures of my mother as a young woman. This photo becomes a significant and valuable family document.”

They call Michael, custodian of the photograph, on the phone number in The Weekend Sun story. And in a sunny carpark in Bethlehem this week Athol, Michael and Rachel linger with the spirits of John and Amy Wheeler. The photograph is passed back into the safe keeping of Athol, the son and grandson.

'This is real life,” says Athol. People, strangers, gather and marvel.

And they note a likeness – that five-year-old in the photograph looks uncannily like the elderly man sitting in the sun in Bethlehem eighty years later. It's the mouths and cheeks apparently. An old man is happy.

Athol says to Michael: 'Thank God you were around”. Thank God it was Michael who found the photograph, and who took it upon himself to hunt down the rightful owners and have it returned.

A postscript – Athol's brothers Gordon and Keith, whose names were also written on the back of the photograph, have both died.

John Wheeler's wife and Amy's mother died before the photograph was taken. John Wheeler later remarried. Athol says the photograph will be entrusted to his daughter – his only child – who now lives in Brisbane. That makes him feel good. And it makes Michael feel deservedly good.